Hoarders can sort through their problem

Because that box is handy, you stack another one on top of it. The magazines land there, then the mail. Some letters spill to the floor, hidden by a shopping bag set down, just for the moment.

Next weekend's chores turn into next month's, and then a year has passed. Floors and tabletops and shelves disappear. What was once a cluttered nest has hatched into an albatross. Yet you need these things, all of them.

That box is in there someplace.

Jeanne Leier's hoarding began in grief. Her fiance, a man she had dated for 12 years, was called up to active duty in Iraq as a doctor in the Army Reserve. He was killed. She fell apart.

That was four years ago. She abandoned a side business making gourmet dog biscuits, leaving the baking and packaging items in her kitchen.

Depressed, Leier craved beauty and began buying bundles of dried and silk flowers to make wreaths and swags to sell at craft shows.

Then her old dog died.

"When he died, I said, 'That's it; I'm done.' "

Each morning, she would go to her job at a medical devices company but came home to her apartment in Little Canada, Minn., unable to make a decision. She would shop, returning with a black sweater that joined other black sweaters.

"Everything really kind of started so slowly that I can't even tell you exactly when it got away from me," she said.

When a new computer was delivered, the box was left in her front hall. It slowly disappeared under coats and bags and mail. That was two years ago.

"If my story helps someone else realize that they're not bad or dirty or stupid -- any of the negative words that are attributed to this -- then it's worth it," Leier said.

Going beyond cleaning

"This is hard work," Nikki Havens said. "We don't sugarcoat it."

Havens, 31, owns Seriously Organized and is one of the few professional organizers in the Twin Cities who tackle hoarder homes.

She comes across as a force to be reckoned with.

"If they hire me and they're not willing to listen to me, we're not going to make any headway," she said.

"I have a very strict program that clients have to adhere to. I'm not going to come in and organize 3,000 T-shirts."

Most hoarding jobs run into the thousands of dollars, but Havens said that clients find that their daily expenses go down.

They shop less and they find troves of items from medications to paper towels.

Before Havens takes on hoarding clients, they enter counseling to get at the issues driving their behavior.

"We need to make sure not to pretend that I'm a therapist, and not to promise self-help," Havens said.

The heart of the work is answering the six "Go" questions: Do I need this item? Do I use this item? Does this item work? Does this item fit into my plan? Do I want to continue to have to maintain and manage this item? Do I really want this item?

A "no" to any of those questions means "go."

Taking control at home

What prompted Leier to take action was, oddly enough, a trip to the dentist, where her blood pressure was found to be high.

"It was a wake-up call," she said. "I decided to stop trying to control the things I can't control and control the things I can control."

The plan to control Leier's possessions worked around a three-stage process of sorting by room, item and purpose. Leier then decided what would be saved, donated, sold or purged.

Havens likened each room to a 5-pound sack.

"I have a client on one side with 30 pounds of potatoes on the floor, and I'm 2 feet away with an empty 5-pound potato sack," Havens said.

"Once my bag has 5 pounds in it, I need to hold the client accountable because we're out of room.

"It's about math, plain and simple."

Changing one's thinking

There might be 10 million hoarders nationwide, probably more, said Renae Reinardy, a psychologist at the Lakeside Center for Behavioral Change in Minnetonka, Minn.

"Hoarding is really its own thing" psychologically, she said, usually prompted by brain injury, personal trauma, depression or dementia. "Sometimes life just hits you too hard all at once."

The most successful approach seems to be cognitive behavioral treatment, which involves identifying, challenging and replacing patterns of thinking.

Making hard choices

The work of culling possessions is grueling. The organizers did 45 loads of clothes at a coin laundry and had Leier make decisions on the spot, returning with only one-third of her wardrobe.

For the client, the grueling work is emotional because it represents parting with what they own and what they're convinced they still need.

Enjoying the results

Leier could muster only a "Wow" recently as she saw, for the first time, her finished apartment.

"It's beautiful," she said, looking across the carpet that she hadn't seen in years.

Already, Leier can't wait to have the neighbors stop by.

"It was a bit scary, but then change is always a bit scary. I will finally have the space to enjoy life once again."